“There’s kind of an artificial ceiling that we broke through this year and I expect guys coming after me to use that to the best of their advantage and continue to move the system forward,” Cole said Thursday. “We’ve really moved a market that kind of has been stagnant for a while forward and I think everybody that’s involved is very proud of it and the players will see some benefit from it.”

Bauer, Cole’s college teammate, will make $13 million. Wood will earn $9.65 million.

The Astros offered Cole an $11.425 million salary. Cole, a Scott Boras client, attended the hearing on Monday in St. Petersburg where he was “intrigued” by the back-and-forth nature of his case.

“I thought Scott did an unbelievable job, they were very prepared,” Cole said. “I was excited for the process. You anticipate you’re going to take some blows — that’s the whole idea, one guy walks in and throws the ball one way and the other guy walks in and throws the ball the other way. With that said, it was a pretty fun process. I liked seeing the business side of it, for sure.”

Under general manager Jeff Luhnow, the Astros have won only one of the six arbitration cases they’ve taken to a hearing — in 2016 against Jason Castro. Cole’s victory was the fifth consecutive win in an arbitration hearing by an Astro in Luhnow’s tenure.

“Arbitrators decide and you don’t get any feedback when they decide — it’s just yes or no — so you don’t really have anything you can learn from,” Luhnow said Thursday. “But, no, I’m not concerned about it. We’re going to continue to do our work, present offers that we think are fair.”